Good evening. Here is the news on Friday, the 27th of Geldof. Archaeologists near Mount Sinai have discovered what is believed to be a missing page from the Bible. The page is currently being carbon dated in Bonn. If genuine it belongs at the beginning of the Bible and is believed to read "To my darling Candy. All characters portrayed within this book are fictitous and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental." The page has been universally condemned by church leaders.

"And thus, Jews were not responsible for the death of Jesus. Jesus was Jewish. Well, that is if there even was a Jesus. Please note that this was all just an allegory. For anyone that has been negatively effected by any confusion resulting from this, we apologize for 2 thousand years of anti-semitism."

Hmmm. I wonder if the tiny little problem of misunderstanding over a misplaced jot in Zechariah 5 will finally be cleared up:

Let's see what makes more sense from the following two translations...

Zechariah 5: 1 - 11Then again I lifted up my eyes, and saw, and, behold, a flying scroll! And he [the messenger/angel] said unto me, What do you see? And I answered, I see a flying scroll; the length thereof is twenty cubits [thirty feet], and the breadth thereof ten cubits [fifteen feet in diameter]. Then said he unto me, This is the curse that goeth forth over the face of the whole land: for every one that stealeth shall be cut off on the one side according to it; and every one that sweareth shall be cut off on the other side according to it. I will cause it to go forth, saith YHWH of hosts, and it shall enter into the house of the thief, and into the house of him that sweareth falsely by my name; and it shall abide in the midst of his house, and shall consume it with the timber thereof and the stones thereof. Then the angel that talked with me went forth, and said unto me, Lift up now your eyes, and see what is this that goes forth. And I said, What is it? And he said, This is the ephah [measure/basket/vessel] that goes forth. He said moreover, This is their appearance in all the land [world]; (and, behold, there was lifted up a talent* of lead metal); and this is a woman sitting in the midst of the ephah [measure/basket/vessel]! And he said, This is Wickedness: and he cast her down into the midst of the ephah; and he cast the weight of lead upon the mouth thereof. Then I lifted up my eyes, and saw, and, behold, there came forth two women, and the wind was in their wings; now they had wings like the wings of a stork; and they lifted up the ephah between earth and heaven. Then said I to the angel that talked with me, Whither do these bear the ephah? And he said unto me, To build her a house in the land of Shinar [traditionally located near modern Iraq]: and when it is prepared, she shall be set there in her own place.

The word being translated here as "woman" [ishshah נָשִׁים ], which sits very closely to two other variations of the word, for example, move a single letter and it becomes eshshah, which means simply "fire" in the traditional sense, or keep the original word ishshah and move a jot and not only does it become "fire" but a sacrificial, or Holy Fire, you know, like the one we get our word "Holocaust" from. Now, lets go back and replace "woman" with "Holy fire", and women" with regular "fire" and see how that pans out.

Then again I lifted up my eyes, and saw, and, behold, a flying scroll! And he [the messenger/angel] said unto me, What do you see? And I answered, I see a flying scroll; the length thereof is twenty cubits [thirty feet], and the breadth thereof ten cubits [fifteen feet in diameter]. Then said he unto me, This is the curse that goeth forth over the face of the whole land: for every one that stealeth shall be cut off [written] on the one side according to it; and every one that sweareth shall be cut off on the other side according to it. I will cause it to go forth, saith YHWH of hosts, and it shall enter into the house of the thief, and into the house of him that sweareth falsely by my name; and it shall abide in the midst of his house, and shall consume it with the timber thereof and the stones thereof. Then the angel that talked with me went forth, and said unto me, Lift up now your eyes, and see what is this that goes forth. And I said, What is it? And he said, This is the ephah [measure/basket/vessel] that goes forth. He said moreover, This is their appearance in all the land [world]; (and, behold, there was lifted up a talent* of lead metal); and this is a Holocaust Fire sitting in the midst of the ephah [measure/basket/vessel]! And he said, This is Wickedness: and he cast it [the fire] down into the midst of the ephah; and he cast the weight of lead upon the mouth thereof. Then I lifted up my eyes, and saw, and, behold, there came forth two fires, and the wind was in their wings; now they had wings like the wings of a stork; and they lifted up the ephah between earth and heaven. Then said I to the angel that talked with me, Whither do these bear the ephah? And he said unto me, To build it a house in the land of Shinar [traditionally located near modern Iraq]: and when it is prepared, it shall be set there in her own place.

So, in one translation you get a flying scroll with a container with a wicked woman in it, carried by two other flying women. Crazy shiat, huh? Those wacky prophets!

However, the other translation suddenly makes a lot more scary sense... a flying scroll (tube), that carries a holocaust fire inside, sealed in a lead container, that can destroy houses of the wicked and the stones thereof, a fire that is declared to be wicked, that flies when lifted up by two fires under stork-like wings... and they all pretty much look like this throughout the whole of the world.

Suddenly an ignored prophesy about future judgement seems to make a whole lot more sense when a simple grammatical and solitary translation error are corrected, because what you have here is a bronze-age prophet describing nuclear missiles well over two thousand five hundred years ago, specifically ones that pretty much fit the description of the ones made in Pakistan, which is awfully close to the land of Shinar (Iraq), and honestly, don't all missiles pretty much look the same across the whole wide world?

Think twice before you laugh at the Bible. The Bible says that the houses of the thief and the liar will be completely consumed. Sadly, it doesn't say which thieves and liars. Maybe the White House? maybe your house? Who knows?? Best not to be a thief and a liar then.

* a talent was the heaviest measuring weight known to Israel at the time. Nuclear warheads aren't exactly light, and the very first atomic bomb weighed in at almost five tons.

Cheeseburger:Farktastic:Jesus tittyfarking christ, maybe it is just time to get rid of these fairy tales for adults. The reason we don't get anywhere as a species on this planet is directly due to religion. If we spent as much time, money and effort on eliminating this disease of the mind as we do on cancer, the world would instantly be a better place.

Gee, I think we've come pretty far as a species. So how have other species not burdened with religion done? Any other apes visited the moon or mapped the human genome? Nope, just still flinging poo at the zoo. And calling religion a disease (or rather, virus, if you want to parrot Dawkins accurately) sounds good, in the same way that saying something is a privilege and not a right sounds good, but it's still bullsh*t. But keep repeating it and people will tend to believe it. Weak-minded people.

Holy wars/GenocideRepression of women/minorities/homosexualsGenetal mutilationReproductive rightsPedophila/organized crimeTerrorismSlaveryRacismRepression and persecution of Science (notice this one is in direct opposition to the achievements you listed)Repression of HistoryRepression of Culture

I could go on but I am sure you get the picture. Religion is a root cause in all of these activities. What we have accomplished as a species has been done despite religion, not because of it.

Just for a second, think about eliminating religious contexts from the powderkeg that is the Middle East. Notice how many problems just go away?

So, theoretically, if the Bible came from god in the first place and it's wrong, that should be evidence of an imperfect god. Or, if for centuries people have been studying an imperfect text shouldn't they all be in hell or smited? Shouldn't this heretic who is rewriting the perfect book in his image be smited? Shouldn't the jews be enacting holy war on his ass for screwing with their supposedly perfect book? Is there anyone in the entire jewish religion who can't see the logical fallacy in this?

Jesus tittyfarking christ, maybe it is just time to get rid of these fairy tales for adults. The reason we don't get anywhere as a species on this planet is directly due to religion. If we spent as much time, money and effort on eliminating this disease of the mind as we do on cancer, the world would instantly be a better place.

This was like "So Jesus took his bad self down to the city, and all the brothers and sisters were like, 'who is this turkey, and what kind of rap is he gonna lay on us, man?' " It's just that bad all the way through.

COMALite J:Also, in Deuteronomy 32:8−9, there's a fascinating tidbit: it seems that "the Most High" (Hebrew: Elyown) was a different god from YHWH, and moreover, was a "god of gods," not worshiped by humans, but by the lesser gods of individual nations (including YHWH)! According to this passage, Elyown assigned various nations to various gods! Israel neé Jacob was YHWH's portion of humanity ("the sons of Adam") assigned to Him as a "lot of His inheritance" by Elyown!

Er? As in Deuteronomy 32, the song of Moses, in which Moses equates the idea of tithing/taxes with the Lord's protection? That one? Where Moses claims that YHWH divided the lands among the people of the earth, but kept the people of Jaacob back as his own personal humanity tax on the world? The most liberal translation of that isn't that YHWH is a minor god, it's that YHWH passed out control of all the peoples of the earth to demi-dieties, and kept only only a direct interest in Israel.

Jesus called out with a loud voice, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." After he had said this, he whispered, "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die," then he breathed his last. Luke23:46

1 God standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods.2 How long will ye judge unjustly, and accept the persons of the wicked? Selah.3 Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy.4 Deliver the poor and needy: rid them out of the hand of the wicked.5 They know not, neither will they understand; they walk on in darkness: all the foundations of the earth are out of course.6 I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High.7 But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes.8 Arise, O God, judge the earth: for thou shalt inherit all nations

ltdanman44:RexTalionis: The problem with the idea of a "Definitive Bible" of course, is that the scholar Menachem Cohen is relying on a 1000 year old codex as the basis for his version of the Old Testament. There could be a ton of errors introduced between the time of writing of each piece of commentary and text and 1000 AD.

Not to mention that at one time, what was Judaism was a polytheistic religion and the original versions of the Old Testament reflected polytheistic roots. It wasn't until much later that the monotheistic cult within proto-Judaism came about and edited the original version of the Old Testament into a book that only reflected a monotheistic religion.

wat

If you look at the text of the OT, it is a revisionist mess - it is, quite frankly, worse than what some of my freshmen have turned in after a late-night Wikipedia cut-paste-and-thesaurus session. Strip out the later stuff, and what you get is a fragmented account of a fairly bog-standard polytheistic faith. The monotheistic stuff is all in the Wikipedia bits.

Also, despite us going on about religion based on ancient shepherds, most of the OT was written by urbanized white-collar types pining for a past that never was - basically, Manhattan hipster-douche office assistants writing about a Disneyfied, mythical Plymouth Rock.